Justice and Universal Participation

Why? Why is this the case? If you’d like, respond with your thoughts below.

Surely, there are many of reasons. Three come to my mind at the moment. They are related to unity, capacity building, and knowledge.

The purpose of justice is to bring about unity within human society. This is a basic reason why all who are a part of this society need to be involved in its development; otherwise how could one claim unity, when some are spectators and some are protagonists? More significant than the actual actions of various people (because of course, contribution to society’s development is a spectrum; some more active, some less) it is the mindset of “us” and “them” – of otherness – that hinders unity.

One of the manifestations of justice is that the capacity of each created thing is revealed to its fullest. Obviously, this, too, is a spectrum. But, to use a tree as a simple example, it is just that a tree be allowed to bear its fruit. Human beings have infinite talents and capacities, especially when each individual is viewed as part of a collective humanity. In order to fully express the collective capacity of humankind, opportunities must be created for each individual to contribute to humanity’s well-being and development, according to his/her talents. Otherwise, if only some develop capacities while others don’t, the collective capacity of humankind will not fully be actualized, which is not just.

Finally, justice is the process of investigating truth through one’s own eyes, and not through blind imitation of what has been already stated. A human being who undertakes an exploration of reality with justice will necessarily have a unique perspective, since it is through his/her own eyes – some may say that it is subjective. We know that reality is multi-faceted. As an example, imagine that it’s a sphere. Each individual will view from a particular angle, perhaps seeing a disc. It is only as more and more subjective perspectives are harmonized together will reality be objectively known and understood. Justice demands universal participation, because it is only through a diverse range of perspectives that our multi-faceted reality can be known, and justice is the process by which we understand truth.